


Love of Re-Animator

by MagicFish



Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Nobody Goes to Prison, Canon-Typical mentions of gore, Figuring Things Out, Herbert West is a disaster, M/M, Post-Bride of Re-Animator, thoroughly unrealistic sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-04-14 22:36:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14146077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicFish/pseuds/MagicFish
Summary: Herbert turned toward the cooler for a new specimen and something in Dan's sleep-deprived mind snapped.The following morning, Dan woke up furious.





	1. Chapter 1

Dan was at his wit's end. Herbert was strung out, so completely focused on what he thought to be an impending breakthrough that he had hardly paused to eat or sleep for days at a time, only to enter a brief hibernation, grab a bit of toast, and head right back into the half-exposed basement to try again.

After weeks of strain, Dan felt worn and ragged, torn between the instinct to somehow soothe Herbert's busy mind and the bitter impulse to just let him burn himself out and learn from his own mistakes. Day after day, he pulled around the narrow bend on the tree-lined road tucked away in the forests of Washington state and felt a sinking dread at the sight of their mailbox, a creeping apprehension as he drove down their long gravel driveway, and a deep resignation as he stepped through the back door to find Herbert, pale and shaking, on the border of malnutrition and exhaustion, yet again sulking over his failed experiments. Dan had started finding excuses to stay late with his hospice patients just to avoid the torture of watching Herbert blindly ignoring his own discomfort in his Sisyphean effort to conquer death.

So when the experiment failed for the sixth time, in the depths of the night, Dan struggled to keep his cool. The forest breathed around them from just beyond the open back door, heaving and alive as the meat on the table never would be again. Its deep, damp smell pulled away the smell of the blood and the unnaturally bright reagent and left in its wake something primal and familiar, and when Herbert turned back toward the cooler for a new specimen, it took over.

Something Dan's sleep-deprived mind snapped. He was suddenly aware of that forest air, damp and teeming with life, flooding his nostrils and filling him up with desire to act and change. Herbert's cool nonchalance for his own condition was, in that moment, unbearable. He wasn't paying attention to his own needs, and he wasn't paying attention to Dan, and sooner or later, it would lead to ruin. Dan could fix him, didn't he see? But he was so focused. So focused it would kill him. That couldn't be allowed. Herbert bent to open the lid of the cooler and Dan pounced.

His hands came down on the cooler lid on either side of Herbert's as Dan leaned in to bite at the scant centimeters of neck that peeked out above his stained lab coat. He controlled himself, just barely, tempering his frustration as much as he could. Herbert let out a cry of surprise that became a moan as Dan forced a hand between his prey and the cooler to palm at the front of Herbert's trousers. He choked the sound back abruptly as Dan's teeth left his neck and found his earlobe.

"Dan," Herbert snapped, "what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Dan was past the use of words. What could he possibly say to this infuriating little man, this single-minded creature who assigned so little importance to his own being that he couldn't begin to understand what the loss of his self-abused mind and body would mean to Dan? No, Herbert would never understand if Dan attempted words.

He responded to action, though. Dan knew this from experience. He had reacted favorably, even kindly, every time Dan had gone along with his mad quests: when he had fled with Herbert across the country; when he had found them aliases and a remote cottage to work in; when he had forged just enough credentials to get a job that provided Herbert with a steady stream of specimens and tissue samples. On many occasions–so many that blood-soaked bags had started to replace flowers in Dan's mind as representations of love–he had lured Herbert to the dinner table or to bed with a present of fresh meat for his experiments. Actions had soothed Herbert's manic mind in the past, and whatever parts of Dan's exhausted and emotional brain still reacted to reason resolved that only action would help his madman now.

Roughly, Dan slid his hands up Herbert's arms to his shoulders and turned him around. Herbert's face was flushed, his eyes sparkling with restrained activity and tight with confusion. He opened his mouth to speak again. That wouldn't do. Dan had already resolved that talking wouldn't help. He put a stop to it with his tongue.

Herbert had not struggled against Dan's embrace, but it was only when he found himself being kissed that he seemed to finally give in to Dan's impulsiveness. His eyes fluttered closed and his twitching hands settled in the lapels of Dan's lab coat and pulled just so, adjusting the taller man's angle to suit his whim. 

When he was satisfied that Herbert's attention was fully redirected to the task at hand, Dan pulled back from Herbert's mouth and focused instead on searching his neck for his pulse point as his fingers traced firm, possessive patterns down Herbert's sides. He finally slid his hands under Herbert's thighs, fingers splayed wide as nets, and lifted him onto the lid of the cooler, glorying in the shuddering sigh that slid from Herbert's kiss-swollen lips as they rutted slowly together. With a last nip to Herbert's neck, a self-satisfied Dan pulled back to inspect his partner's fogged glasses and lust-blown eyes.

"You need a good meal and sleep," he said, rough-voiced. Herbert blinked dazedly in surprise.

"I...need…" he parroted. He shook himself ever so slightly and drew himself up, oozing reproach. "Daniel–"

But Dan shut him up with another kiss and then pulled back, leaving Herbert perched on the edge of the cooler, flushed, disheveled, and straining with need.

"You need to sleep and eat," Dan repeated, "but if you have other needs that you want to deal with first, you're welcome to come along to the bedroom." With that, Dan turned and left the lab.

He got all the way to the bedroom, quietly cursing the fact that this was the only way he could ever walk away from Herbert West, before his partner caught up to him. Herbert was panting heavily, a look of righteous irritation on his face.

"What do you think you're doing?" he growled. Dan grinned and turned on the charm that had seen him through so many encounters with women before Herbert had taken over his life completely.

"Whatever you want," he said.

"I want to work," Herbert groused petulantly.

"Then what are you doing here?" Dan returned.

In some nebulous future, Herbert would certainly be appalled at the way he threw himself across the room and into Dan's arms, tugging desperately at Dan's clothes until they were both naked, skin pressed warm and reassuring against living skin. He would be reduced to a spluttering rage at how quickly he ceded control to Dan, gasping needily as they fell together onto Herbert's bed. He would flush furiously and retreat into a quivering, silent funk at the memory of his own voice shakily gasping, "Danny, please."

Future Herbert be damned, Dan thought smugly as he pinned the man in question beneath him. Herbert's legs hooked almost instinctively around Dan's hips as Dan leaned in to suck firmly at the love bites already blooming on Herbert's neck. Herbert arched up toward him at the sensation, and Dan pushed his advantage. He twined his fingers into Herbert's short hair (short, but getting longer; Dan would have to schedule haircuts for them both) and tugged his head back sharply so he could force their lips together. Herbert gasped against his lips. Good. If he wanted a little pain, Dan would give him a little pain.

He trailed firm kisses and bites along Herbert's neck and collarbones, rutting slowly and aimlessly against Herbert's smooth skin as he reached blindly for the lube on the bedside table. He pulled back to hold up the bottle.

"Is this OK?" he asked. Herbert nodded distractedly and surged up to meet his mouth in a needy kiss. Breaking the kiss, Dan coated a finger liberally with lubricant and hooked Herbert's legs over his shoulders as he pressed his finger into Herbert's body. Herbert was usually a demanding lover, domineering and bossy as he directed Dan to "hook your fingers...no, not there, further back." Today, however, he was quiet, warm and welcoming as Dan worked him open. For just a moment, Herbert was the subject and the assistant, laid open for the taking and blindly following Dan's lead as he never did in daily life. Dan pressed a second finger into Herbert's body, then a third, until Herbert was begging "please, please, please" with every scissoring stroke.

Withdrawing his fingers, Dan slicked his cock and pressed into Herbert bit by bit, in short but smooth thrusts, sliding a little further each time and pausing occasionally to apply more lubricant to his achingly hard cock. Herbert trembled under him, flayed open on the knife edge between pleasure and pain, vivisected by his own desire for the ache of penetration.

His needy pleas nearly drove Dan mad. Unable to hold back, he centered himself and then thrust firmly into Herbert, setting a steady but unrelenting pace. Herbert's back arched underneath him, pressing their bodies together to trap Herbert's weeping cock between them and digging his nails into Dan's back. As Dan pulled back briefly to adjust the angle of his thrusts, he caught and held Herbert's eyes, glazed over and nearly delirious with sensation.

Herbert would never think to call this making love; he lacked the ability to understand the depth of the warmth, affection, and respect that had blossomed in Dan through years of acting as a caretaker and accomplice. To Herbert, the act of copulation was a necessary evil of occupying a body constrained by the laws of the physical world. But seeing the obsessive scientist open-mouthed and panting, submissive and contained for once in his frenetic life, sent a fresh shock of desire coursing through Dan.

Dan tugged the infuriating man further into his lap and thrust into him deeply, stroking Herbert's cock in time with his thrusts. Herbert would never hear his declaration for what it was, but even so, Dan was soon gasping it out like a plea every time he slammed into Herbert's pliant body. "I love you. I love you. God, I love you."

Grasping and twisting at the sheets, Herbert was finally completely undone. His gasps grew into long moans and then a hoarse cry of "Oh yes, Danny!" as he came between them. Dan followed soon after, spilling into Herbert's body and collapsing bonelessly onto him. As the aftershocks washed over him, Herbert seemed almost unaware that he was stroking calming circles over Dan's back. Finally, almost resignedly, he huffed against Dan's neck.

"If you're really so insistent, I think I can sleep now." In spite of himself, Dan chuckled at Herbert's sullen tone. He cleaned them both up and then crawled back over Herbert, already half asleep, to settle behind his diminutive partner on the bed.

Tomorrow, Herbert would eat a real breakfast, Dan would make sure of it. He would chat excitedly about whatever new ideas he had dreamed up through the night, and then he would disappear back to the basement and begin the cycle all over again. But for a short time, he would lie still and safe, recovering in Dan's arms.

Dan was nearly asleep himself when he felt Herbert's back vibrate against his chest. He shifted closer, sliding a hand over Herbert's chest and pulling him closer.

"You say something?" he murmured.

"Danny...I...also…" Herbert trailed off sleepily.

"Hm?" Dan pushed himself through the fog of sleep and nuzzled gently against the back of Herbert's neck. Later, he would be unsure whether he had dreamed or actually heard Herbert say, "love...you…"


	2. Chapter 2

When Dan awoke the next morning, with Herbert's hair tickling his nose and his slight, familiar body tucked snuggly against Dan's, he was furious.

In the clear morning light, Dan was certain he had heard Herbert say he loved him, which meant that Herbert was trying to please him for some reason. But why? It was a ploy, that much was obvious. Dan caught himself stroking Herbert's hip just a little too hard in his irritation and forced his hand still.

Herbert might simply be trying to pull his strings, Dan thought as he gently pulled away from Herbert's sleep-warm body and slid carefully out of the bed. He might be trying to please Dan. Maybe he was afraid that Dan would leave and find emotional validation elsewhere. Maybe he was just trying to get Dan to stay close and keep up his loyal assistant act.

That didn't entirely make sense, though, Dan reflected as he crept out of the room and shuffled sleepily to the bathroom. Dan hadn't shown any signs of tiring of Herbert or wanting to leave. Moreover, he had long since developed the ability to see through Herbert's blatant manipulations, and Herbert knew it. He knew that Dan would resent being toyed with, and that Dan would leave to cool off if he caught Herbert trying to play on his emotions. Dan had left before.

No, Herbert had to have a different game in mind. Dan spat out his toothpaste and reached into the shower to test the water temperature. What if Herbert was counting on Dan seeing through his ploy? He might, well, the thought was infuriating, but he might want Dan to get angry and leave.

Dan swore as a wad of shampoo bubbles fell into his eye, derailing his train of thought. He vaguely registered the sound of Herbert's toothbrush clattering into the holder as he grumbled at the pain and focused on rinsing his eye out, but his housemate did not say anything or join him in the shower. Was his silence a tacit admission of guilt? Had he predicted Dan's anger? Was he, in fact, counting on it?

Dan frowned at himself in the mirror as he toweled off, mentally enumerating all of the nefarious things that Herbert could be planning to do if he had the house to himself for the day. None of them made sense, he concluded as he pulled his t-shirt over his head. Herbert wasn't the type to have an affair while Dan was gone. He would never, god willing, try to plan some hokey romantic gesture. If he had some crazy plan related to the work, he would have no reason not to just tell Dan and ask for his help; Dan hadn't turned him down for years. No, Herbert had no reason to try to get Dan to leave. So what could he be up to?

Regardless of Herbert's plan, the only sure way to avoid whatever effects his machinations would undoubtedly unleash on their day-to-day lives would be to head them off before they began. Dan would confront his partner.

Bracing himself, he stepped down the last few stairs of the split-level and rounded the corner into the kitchen, where Herbert, his sleep-fluffed hair backlit by the warm, golden sunshine filtering through the trees into their kitchen window, was completely focused on making a sandwich. The effect was disarmingly and aggressively normal. No bodies in the basement here, just a normal Sunday morning in rural Washington. Just a small scientist in an oversized t-shirt having something to eat before taking his morning shower. Just the man Dan loved in a rare moment of peace. It hurt almost physically to disturb it.

Dan leaned heavily against the wall at the bottom of the stairs and gathered his strength.

"I love you."

It was the first time he had said it out of bed, in the unrelenting light of day, and it had quite the effect. Herbert spun around, looking shocked and peculiarly frightened, grasping frantically at the edge of the counter. Dan forced himself to suppress the immediate urge to soothe the shock he had caused.

"I love you," he repeated deliberately, folding his arms across his chest to keep them from reaching out for Herbert. "I love you, and you told me last night that you love me."

"I-"

"You're manipulating me."

"And why not?" Herbert snapped. Dan cursed his arrogance at thinking he had gotten the drop on Herbert. He'd gone too fast and put the conversation back into Herbert's comfort zone, out of the realm of emotion and into the realm of fact.

"You were manipulating me, as well," Herbert accused. "Breaking my concentration. Forcing my...my baser needs to the surface, where I can't ignore them."

"I did that to help you!" Dan protested.

"As did I," Herbert shot back. "You aren't like me. You need an emotional connection as much as you need a regular fuck. I know it's not easy for you."

"Well, I'm certainly feeling some kind of emotion."

"Danny." For the second time in two days, Herbert seemed to be completely unguarded. Backed up against the counter, he looked small, a little tired, and human in a way that Dan hadn't been prepared for. "Danny, I said it for you. If you would prefer that I not say it again, I will apologize and we can continue as if it hadn't happened."

"No, that's not it. I just need to understand," Dan protested, rubbing the bridge of his nose distractedly. The space between them felt immeasurably wide. "Herbert, the work is everything to you."

"Of course it is."

"You have to understand how cheap a declaration of love might sound coming from someone who is more or less married to a quest to conquer death."

"I have already conquered death," Herbert grumbled. "I merely need to refine my methods to establish a revival procedure with consistent results."

"That's all well and good, but the process doesn't leave much room for emotional attachments."

"Perhaps not." Oddly, Herbert didn't sound convinced. He frowned distractedly and became so fascinated by the middle distance that Dan left him to it and sidled around him to the counter to make himself a sandwich.

Just as Dan was tenderly placing a second slice of cheese across its bed of shaved turkey, Herbert quivered into view at his elbow.

"It's just that I've realized that you're part of the reason I need to finish this." The rapid string of words was so quick and garbled that Dan had to pause to be sure he had understood. 

He hadn't. No matter how he considered it, the utterance required an explanation. He set a piece of bread over his sandwich as he waited for Herbert to get nervous enough to elaborate.

"It's..." he started. "Dan..." he choked. "I.." With a huff of frustration, Herbert grabbed his own plate and stomped petulantly to the table. Still baffled, Dan followed.

They ate in silence for a while. Herbert stared fixedly at his slowly disappearing sandwich with his brow furrowed in concentration. Dan focused on waiting patiently for Herbert to finish his sentences-any of them-and used his time to consider the situation again.

He loved Herbert. He prided himself that he had never declared his affection to someone he wasn't genuinely in love with. However, his feelings for Herbert were a different creature altogether from the love he had felt for any of his previous romantic partners. Every woman he had ever dated had fit into his plans for the future. In his mind, each of them had slotted neatly into the rapidly approaching life of Doctor Daniel Cain, another piece of the puzzle that would become his life. He had supported their own ambitions, of course, but only as far as they had complemented his own.

For Herbert, however, Dan had ruined his life. He had broken all ties with everyone and everything he had known, set aside his professional ambitions and all of his plans, and turned his attention more or less entirely to supporting his partner. For Dan, it was a new kind of love, one that he hoped was more giving and, he hoped, more mature than the selfish flings of his youth, even if it bordered on codependency.

Herbert, Dan had to admit, had also made compromises. He had learned, more or less, to respect Dan's daily routine and need to sleep. He had also recognized Dan's need for social interaction and had begun to offer conversation and company at mealtimes and in the evenings, even if he forgot to eat or rest himself. In fact, he had entirely stopped turning Dan away when he settled into a worn folding chair in the walk-out basement just to chat. And the sex…

Dan shook himself out of his reverie to discover that he had been frozen in place with his sandwich halfway to his mouth long enough for Herbert to finish his own sandwich and fix him with a steely, intense glare.

"Do I have your attention?" Herbert asked. Dan nodded sheepishly. "Good."

Herbert took a deep breath.

"If you were to die," he spat the last word as if it were a profanity, "I don't know what I would do. It used to be just about the work-not just anyone can do what you do for me, after all-but for some time now, it's been more." He averted his eyes and started worrying the corner of his napkin, clearly trying to put his thoughts in order. Dan struggled to breathe slowly, suddenly terrified that the slightest wrong move would send Herbert scurrying for more familiar ground.

"Your presence has become intrinsic to my life," Herbert finally admitted to the table. "Even to my...happiness. I...Dan, I didn't just say it for you."

Dan slowly rose from his chair, leaning forward across the table to grasp Herbert's hand where it hovered over the ruined paper napkin.

"Herbert, look at me." Dan cursed the lump in his throat that made the words come out choked and thin, terrified that his emotions would render them insubstantial in the ethereally golden glow of the morning light around them. Herbert looked up, his face flushed and his eyes open and truthful. Under Dan's fingers, Herbert's pulse raced.

"Do you mean it?" Dan knew he sounded stupid, but dust motes were filtering down through a sunbeam between them and the woods outside the window were like a fairytale and Herbert loved him and nothing felt real. Without taking his eyes from Dan's, Herbert nodded once, solemnly.

"I love you," Dan said slowly, afraid to break the spell. "And I'm sorry I never noticed that you loved me too." Just as slowly, he leaned in further and reverently kissed Herbert across the table.

In an instant, Herbert was gone, his hand yanked out from under Dan's and his lips out of reach. In another instant, he was around the table and back again, pulling Dan down to his level and kissing frantically, not seeming to care whether he caught Dan's lips or his chin or his throat. The shock at Herbert's sudden passion gave way quickly to lust, and in a moment, Dan was returning kiss for kiss, corralling Herbert's lips with his, and delving deep into his lover's mouth. After a long moment, Herbert broke the kiss with a gasp.

"When you do that, I feel like I'm falling. I feel...I feel so much when I'm with you," Herbert admitted, breathlessly.

Faster than he thought possible, Dan found himself across the room and pressed hard against the edge of the peninsula counter with Herbert perched upon it, his legs wrapped greedily around Dan's waist, his arms getting in Dan's way as he tried to yank Dan's shirt off of him.

"Stop that, Herbert. I need to get-"

"I don't care what you need to get; I need to get at you."

"Oil, Herbert, unless you want to come in your pants and make a mess of them."

"They're your pants. I don't care," Herbert protested, but he dutifully put his hand down long enough for Dan to shuffle over to free a bottle of olive oil from a nearby cabinet and drop it clumsily onto the counter.

As soon as the oil was liberated, Herbert's hands were back, shoving Dan's shirt over his head and pulling him insistently closer. Dan managed to push him away again long enough to shove Herbert's shirt (no, actually, that was also Dan's) up and nip lightly at his nipples.

"Danny, please!" Herbert bucked his hips against Dan, his tone somehow both pleading and chastising.

"Lie back and let me get these off you," Dan insisted, tugging at the elastic waistband of his own damn pajama pants where they hugged Herbert's narrow hips. Moaning in frustration, Herbert did as he was told, flopping carelessly backwards along the length of the peninsula and obligingly lifting his hips to let Dan free his needy cock.

"Look at you, Herbert," Dan groaned reverently. Herbert was flushed and panting, spread out across the counter like a meal laid out just for Dan.

"Less looking, more fu-HUH-uuuuuck, Dan, do that again!" Herbert cried as Dan dipped down, closed his mouth entirely around Herbert's cock, and sucked his way back up to the tip.

"Yes, dear." With a diabolical chuckle, Dan did as he was told, wriggling his tongue up the underside of Herbert's cock as he sucked it into his mouth again and again. Blindly, he fumbled around where he had dropped the olive oil, only to come up empty. He sucked his way back up until his tongue was lapping at only the tip of Herbert's cock and found that the oil hadn't fallen to the floor, as he'd feared, but had found its way into Herbert's hand, where it was being used to liberally coat his fingers.

"Get your pants off. For god's sake, get your pants off now," Herbert gasped, and then his well-oiled fingers were slipping past Dan's cheek to slide into Herbert's still-loose hole.

Dan didn't need to be told twice. In a moment, his jeans and boxers joined Herbert's pajamas on the floor and he was pushing forward, sliding his own fingers in next to Herbert's and hooking them up to stroke Herbert's prostate mercilessly. His lover's gasps became needy cries of arousal and need, and he had to grasp the base of his own cock to keep from coming at the sight.

Finally, Dan could hold out no longer. Batting Herbert's hand out of the way, he viciously yanked the smaller man down until his hips hung just off the counter and, without any other warning, pushed in.

Full of emotion, love, and need, Dan couldn't find it in himself to wait before pulling back and thrusting deeply into Herbert, changing his angle minutely on each stroke and waiting for-

"There, Dan!"

For that. Grinning, he tightened his grip on Herbert's hips and thrust into him over and over as Herbert canted his hips to meet him, the force of their motion carrying Herbert back and forth over the counter and pushing his shirt up around his armpits.

"I love you, I love you, I love you!" This time, it wasn't Dan babbling, but Herbert, his face a mask of bliss as his legs clenched around Dan. WIth an insensible roar, Dan's world exploded, and suddenly he was coming in hot, full spurts deep inside Herbert.

When the stars cleared from his vision, Dan became aware of two things. First, Herbert was balanced precariously against Dan's hips, and was close to falling off the counter. Second, Herbert was still desperately hard.

With a motion so smooth he doubted he would ever be able to repeat it, Dan slid Herbert off of his softening cock and plopped his hips firmly back on the counter. Then, he ducked his head to suck down Herbert's straining cock again. Frantically, Dan ran his tongue over Herbert's cock, lapping from the glans to the base and twisting just how Herbert liked it.

"Dan, please, please, Danny, put your fingers back in me, please!"

Dan didn't need to be told twice. Sliding his hand firmly around the curve of Herbert's ass, he lined up two fingers and thrust them in, pushing his own seed back where it had begun to dribble out of his lover's loosened hole. He sucked more firmly at Herbert's cock, savoring the salty beads of precum that dribbled into his mouth and groaning deep in his throat whenever his lips met the coarse curls of Herbert's pubic hair.

All the while, Herbert kept up his litany. "Yes, just like that. Oh Danny, yes, just like that, right there. Oh god, Danny, I love you. I love you. Right there. Yes. Ah!"

And then Herbert was coming down Dan's throat, his spine convulsing with aftershocks as Dan swallowed around him, pulled off, and collapsed onto Herbert's stomach.

"God, we're a mess. I'm gonna have to wash up again," Dan huffed into his partner's skin. Under him, he felt Herbert's diaphragm jolt rhythmically with laughter.

"What's so funny?" Dan asked dazedly.

"It's all," Herbert gasped around his giggles, "all according to plan."

"Plan?!" Dan exclaimed. "You little cretin, you _were_ manipulating me!"

"Manipulating yes. Lying no." Herbert raised his head and gave his characteristic smirk. "Why do you think I didn't join you in the shower?"


End file.
